Flame Spirit

A flame spirit is a hovering globe of living fire with no face to speak of, only a pair of oval patches near its center that act as eyes. From a random point on its surface a whip of flame keeps lashing out and snapping back, then bursting forth again somewhere else a heartbeat later. Three kinds are known. The greater spirit is a 10-foot sphere whose fire shifts constantly between yellow, red and green, with eyes of deep red; its tendril reaches about 5 feet. The lesser spirit is a dull orange ball 6 feet wide with black eyes and a 3-foot tendril. The least is a white-hot globe only a foot across, with tiny red eyes and a 2-foot tendril.

All flame spirits talk in a voice like steam escaping a kettle. They have a tongue of their own and also pick up whatever languages are common where they are called.

These are vicious foes that charge anything they see and never surrender. The tendril scorches for 1d10 points of damage from a greater spirit, 1d6 from a lesser and 1d4 from a least. Anything flammable the lash touches catches alight unless it succeeds on a save vs. magical fire, rolled with a -1 penalty. A lesser spirit can also call up pyrotechnics once per day, as the eastern sorcerers' 2nd-level spell, but it must draw on some fire other than the one forming its own body. A least spirit may cast fiery eyes, the 1st-level eastern sorcerer spell, once per day. No flame spirit can cross water or any other liquid that will not burn, which is often the best way to escape one.

Flame spirits are kin to fire elementals and, like them, hail from the fiery elemental plane. They come to the Prime Material Plane only when summoned, and the summoner must offer an open fire to serve as a shell. A greater spirit needs a blaze at least 5 feet across; a lesser needs one of 3 feet or more and, because it can eat nothing but basalt, volcanic ash and similar rock, must be called up in or near an active volcano. A single candle flame suffices for a least spirit. Once inside its shell, the spirit swells to full size.

Wicked eastern sorcerers keep greater flame spirits as guards or set them to heat the enormous furnaces of their magical workshops. A greater spirit will devour any fuel but favors well-seasoned wood and fresh parchment. Least spirits are mild enough to be housed in lanterns as lamps, and they stay put quietly so long as their keeper keeps feeding them. Their ashes have uses: parchment burned away by a lesser spirit can go into noisome spirit chasers, while pure silk consumed by a least spirit yields ash for a fire-protection charm (charm of protection from fire).